New tales of mystery and crime from Latin America
By: edited and translated by Amelia Simpson.
Contributors: Simpson, Amelia S., 1952-
Publisher: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press; Associated University Presses
Published: 1992
Place of publication: Rutherford; London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 161
Subjects: Detective and mystery stories, Latin American -- Translations into English.; Latin American fiction -- 20th century -- Translations into English.; Latin America -- Social life and customs -- Fiction.
Description: With this volume, readers can enjoy some of the best mystery and crime fiction from Latin America, as Latin Americans have long been devotees of British whodunits as well as North American hard-boiled tales. Here, translated from the Spanish and Portuguese, are eight stories from those countries where the most significant work in mystery and crime fiction in Latin America originates--Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, and Cuba. A boom in the genre can be observed in the 1970s.

And 1980s, the period to which these stories belong. In an introductory essay, Amelia S. Simpson explains the background to that boom, and the context that makes Latin American mystery and crime fiction an intriguing and exceptional body of writing within what is often thought of as a formulaic genre with little substance and few literary pretensions. The stories in the present volume cover a range of styles and express a variety of views of what mystery and crime.

Fiction can mean. The elegant and supple voice of Argentine author Ricardo Piglia looks at systems of violence in "The Crazy Woman and the Story of the Crime." With a nod to Raymond Chandler and the hard-boiled school of detective fiction, and a bow to Poe's ratiocinations, Piglia creates one of the most imaginative, intricate in its implications, and original crime stories Latin America has produced. The real horror of Piglia's tale of violence is that it never ends.

"Hierarchy," by Piglia's fellow Argentine Eduardo Goligorsky, on the other hand, reaches an explosive conclusion that punctuates another vision of systematic violence. In "Doctor and Doctoring," the Mexican author Luis Arturo Ramos draws on history and memory--a story of haves and have-nots--to bring together two men in a murderous embrace. The next four stories are from Brazil. The first two deal specifically, like Ramos's tale, with the fact of social privilege and.

Authority. Ignacio de Loyola Brandao's "Monday's Heads" shows a deeply rooted social psychosis blossom in the narrow confines of an elevator car. The documentary style of Paulo Celso Rangel's "Deposition" underlines the lack of artifice needed to play this predictable and brutal game of cat and mouse. In "Mandrake," Rubem Fonseca's private eye shows us a deeply disturbed and disturbing side of Rio de Janeiro. Glauco Rodrigues Correa's "The South Bay Crime" provides an.

Amusing look at provincial Brazilians and maintains as well a suspenseful narrative concerning a young boy's mysterious disappearance. Finally, Cuban author Arnaldo Correa's "The Man under the Ceiba Tree" subtly undermines the transparent approach of much socialist detective fiction of the postrevolutionary period. Like all good mystery and crime stories, these can be read simply for pleasure, as well as for the insights they offer into Latin American culture and.

Fiction.